When all around you are assholes, you are under no obligation to become one.

Put the Blame on Mame

Whenever a tragedy happens in America, blame flies thick and fast in all directions.

As soon as the attempted assassination of Representative Giffords of Arizona and the murders of innocent bystanders reached the public’s attention, the political left immediately piled on the Tea Party for its vitriolic rhetoric and on Sarah Palin for her crosshair approach to defeating Democrats.

No sooner had these accusations been voiced than the political right fired back, accusing the lefties of creating the conditions in America that ultimately lead to violence. The assailant himself, Jared Loughner, was branded a Blue Dog Democrat and a rabid left-winger.

The media laid it all at the feet of the heated political rhetoric, primarily from the Republican Party.

A few commenters on blog sites and in the media blamed the easy availability of guns.

Even mental illness reared its head. Reports are surfacing about Loughner’s bizarre behavior and his increasing distance from reality.

The suggestion that Loughner may be possessed also came up today when one source reported a large number of requests for information about exorcisms.

It seemed that everyone and yet no one was at fault, and in the end, the assailant Loughner was the only individual who could be directly pinned to the crime. According to the sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, he planned the assault, purchased the gun he used, and pulled the trigger.

To confound the matter, no solid evidence of Loughner’s political affiliation or beliefs has so far been uncovered.

The American mind simply cannot tolerate loose ends. If we can’t figure out Loughner’s political ideology, we’ll create it. We’ll interpret various and sundry of his actions through the prism of our own political beliefs and, being decent Americans who would never commit such an act, assign the opposite beliefs to Loughner.

How is this tragedy going to play out? If reaction to the blood-letting follows the usual pattern, we’ll pass through the accusatory phase, soul search a little, wring our hands over our political divisions, hold a hearing or two, maybe even tone down our rhetoric for fifteen minutes or so. Michael Moore might even film a documentary about it.

Then, we’ll forget the incident. We are great at speculating but lousy at changing things.

2 Responses

I would say that in any case of mass killing, there’s never one short, easy reason we can point to.

Yes, I think violent rhetoric certainly played a large part in the shooting – and is continuing to have a role in all of the threats being levied at politicians, especially the liberal ones. I saw protesters in Pakistan demanding that an assassin be released because the liberal politician he murdered was “treasonous” and “immoral”. I do not see much difference between that and much of what is happening over here. Blogs and articles are filled with comments saying that Gifford got what she deserved. This wouldn’t happen if we could admit that smart, decent people can love their country even if they have radically different views of how to make the country better.

Good morning, Rachel. Thanks for your thoughts. I like the snow flake- blizzard analogy. I liken the blizzard to American culture and the snow flake to the individuals who comprise our culture. One of the “rules” implicit in our culture is a perceived right to resort to violence when we don’t get our way. Our laws may not give us the explicit right to resort to violence except under some circumstances such as self-defense but the under currents have always run just below the surface. Frequently, those under currents have broken above the surface with horrific results. Until we somehow as a society address our tacit belief in Second Amendment rights just because we don’t like our electoral outcomes, these horrors are going to continue. A society in which more individual Americans are murdered than the numbers killed in all of our wars (I have the stats on these and may re-publish later) isn’t going to change its violent ways short of an incident or incidents so terrible that we either change or perish. Are we capable of change? I wonder.